Leto
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Leto. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
Called Latona by the Romans, was daughter of the Titan Coeus and Phoebe, and mother of Apollo and Artemis ( Diana ) by Zeus ( Jupiter ). The love of the king of the gods procured for Leto the enmity of Hera ( Juno ). Persecuted by this goddess, Leto wandered from place to place, till she came to Delos, which was then a floating island, and bore the name of Asteria or Ortygia. Zeus fastened it by adamantine chains to the bottom of the sea, that it might be a secure resting-place for his beloved, and there she gave birth to Apollo and Artemis. Leto was generally worshipped only in conjunction with her children. Leucas or Leucadia (Santa Maura). An island in the Ionian Sea, off the west coast of Acarnania. At the south extremity of the island, opposite Cephallenia, was the celebrated promontory, variously called Leucas, 1 Leucatas, Leucates, or Leucate, on which was a temple of Apollo Leucadius. At the annual festival of the god it was the custom to cast down a criminal from this promontory into the sea: birds were attached to him in order to break his fall; and if he reached the sea uninjured, boats were ready to pick him up. This appears to have been an expiatory rite; and it gave rise to the wellknown story that lovers leaped from this rock in order to seek relief from the pangs of love. Thus Sappho is said to have leaped down from this rock when in love with Phaon.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
in Greek mythology, the mother by Zeus of Apollo and Artemis. She is called Latona by the Romans.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The mythology sketched here in 1900 and 1910 is still the mythology told today: Leto, daughter of Coeus and Phoebe, hounded by Hera, giving birth to Apollo and Artemis on Delos. The one real correction is to the claim that she "was generally worshipped only in conjunction with her children." Excavation of the Letoon, a great sanctuary near Xanthos in Lycia (southwest Turkey), begun by French archaeologists in 1962, showed Leto as a leading goddess in her own right there; a trilingual stele in Lycian, Greek and Aramaic found on the site in 1973 became a key document for the Lycian language, and the Letoon was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site with Xanthos in 1988. Many scholars now connect her name with the Lycian word lada, "wife" or "woman," and treat her as an Anatolian goddess absorbed into the Greek pantheon.
Written for this edition, 2026.